Right then, Tang Coco felt fate toy with her like a cat batting a trapped moth, and a bitter smile cut across her rain-soaked face.

Whoosh—

Headlights streamed past like silver fish in a black river of asphalt, and Tang Coco stared at them like a stone under falling water.

Suddenly, a white van that had already passed reversed back like a crab scuttling sideways, parked at the curb, and three men stepped out under umbrellas like dark mushrooms.

“Hey, little lady—what’s up?”

“Yeah, what happened? All alone out here?”

They drifted toward her like stray dogs circling a bone, and Tang Coco slowly raised her head, her eyes like winter glass, her face cold as frost.

“Damn, she’s… that pretty?”

“For real—she had her head down. Absolute knockout…”

“Pretty girl, who bullied you? In this storm, come with us for something hot.”

They came close, rain threading down their sleeves like strings of mercury.

“Scram.”

Tang Coco’s voice was flat as ash in a brazier gone cold.

“Still playing tough? Come have some fun. We’ll make you forget your worries.”

“I said scram. Want to die?”

Her anger struck first like thunder rolling under the skin, then her words snapped like a broken twig.

“Heh. Spicy little pepper. I like it. Grab her!”

They lunged like hyenas, one clamped her arm, one reached for her thigh, and the third stood watch like a crow on a fence.

“Huh? What’s this?”

The one gripping her arm tried to yank her up, but her arm felt rooted like rock sunk in riverbed silt.

“Emergency protocol engaged. Target confirmed as non-Abnormal. Cancel Mech materialization. Switch to limb enhancement.”

“Go.”

The word slipped from her lips like wind through reeds, so light it made his heart stumble on wet stone.

“The hell! Get up!”

He heaved, and her arm moved—straight into his face like a hammer from a forge.

Crack!

Spurt!

The snap of bone and the spray of blood rang in their ears like snapped bamboo, and the man fell back like a felled tree and went out cold.

“You—!”

The crouching one reached in, and Tang Coco’s knee drove into his gut like a battering ram.

Thud.

“Argh!!”

“Boss!”

The lookout yelled toward the man who’d just dropped, his voice thin in the rain like a frayed rope.

Tang Coco rose, hair loose and wild like storm-tossed seaweed, a thread of crimson glinting in her eyes, and she walked toward the last man like a ghost in the squall.

“Warning: Host stamina low. Cancel limb enhancement. System entering standby. Recommend immediate disengagement.”

With the voice gone, her strength fled like tide draining from shore, and she collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

“W-what… what was that… just now…”

Clarity returned in shards like broken glass catching light, and unlike last time, she remembered every beat.

“Cough… cough… Third—grab her! I’m gonna make her pay!”

She looked up at the man on the ground barking orders to the last one; her heart lurched like a drum hit off beat, and she knew she had to run.

She staggered up, then sprinted forward like a deer bolting into rain-dark brush.

“Damn it—don’t run!”

The shout chased her like a hungry dog, and Tang Coco ran full tilt in the downpour as if drums beat on her back.

But her body now was a heavy boat against current; she couldn’t outrun the man, and because she’d used her Anomaly Power, her head spun, and streetlights smeared like distant stars rubbed by rain.

She spotted a low-rise neighborhood ahead like a cluster of damp nests, slipped into the alleyways, and cut left and right through the maze like a fish darting through reeds.

“Damn, she can run. Can’t chase. If Boss gets found, we’re screwed.”

He panted after a bit, breath ragged like a torn bellows, then turned and ran back.

Soon after, Ningxin drove in, saw a van idling like a blunt whale, and two bodies lying by it like discarded sacks. Trouble pricked at her like a thorn, so she parked, raised her umbrella like a black lily, and walked over. Up close, she frowned as hard as a winter line; both men were out cold and their faces were wrecked.

She was about to look closer when footsteps slapped through puddles like little drums from the side.

“Hey! Who are you? This ain’t your business! Move along!”

“I’m a cop. What happened here?”

Ningxin read him in a glance like a page of clumsy ink, and decided to wear the badge in her voice.

“Huh? Police?”

He flinched like a bird under a hawk’s shadow.

“N-no. Nothing. They just drank too much.”

Ningxin’s brow pinched like a knot as she watched him lie, then something on the ground caught her eye like a wet black stone. She walked over and picked up a phone slick with rain.

“Third, did you catch that woman?”

One of the unconscious men blinked awake and croaked toward the other like a frog in mud.

“Uh… Boss, don’t talk… There’s a cop…”

The warning still reached Ningxin like a spark, and a thought struck like lightning. She pulled out her own phone and called Tang Coco. The phone she’d just picked up chimed, a clear ring slicing the rain like a silver bell. It was Tang Coco’s.

“Hey! Where’s that girl?”

Ningxin stepped up, her voice snapping like a whip, and put the question in his face.

“Huh? Wh-what girl?”

“Talk. Or you’re all going to jail.”

“Uh… she… she ran…”

“Which way?”

“That way…”

With her answer, Ningxin sprinted back to the car like a runner under dawn, fired up the engine, and drove in that direction like a hound loosed on a scent.

Meanwhile, unaware, Tang Coco kept running. She flew toward the alley’s end where another road lay like a gray ribbon, and she aimed for it like a moth toward a lamplight. Just as she reached the edge, with strength and awareness draining like sand from a split gourd, she stumbled. She slid hard, the asphalt biting her like rough teeth, her tracks scraping a dark line. Her sportswear tore, and pain flared in her knees, arms, and palms like sparks from raw stone, but she didn’t care. She only wanted to get up and leave—leave this place, leave Gu Xin and Meng Yuting, leave everyone.

She clawed her way upright like a swimmer against undertow, but weakness flooded her limbs like cold tide.

“Why… why am I this miserable… Why!!”

Her last strand of strength frayed like silk in rain, her cry tore like cloth, and darkness folded over her like night wings.

Soon after she blacked out, a white sports car sliced past like a pale arrow, then swung back in a tight turn to return here.